Amaya Tidecrest held the silver necklace up to the window light and read the two letters again. K and S. Her parents had left her nothing else. She ran a webbed thumb over the tiny engraved heart, then pressed it against the gills on her neck, where her skin still felt too different from everyone else's. Someone out there had given her these gills. She meant to find out who. Her house looked ruined from the outside. Vines choked the porch. The paint peeled in long strips, and the roof sagged like a broken back. But inside, Amaya kept it clean and warm. She had swept the floors that morning. A furry brown creature with huge ears and a green snake tail sat on her table, nibbling a crust. It had wandered in weeks ago and never left. She called it her only friend. "K and S," she told the creature. "That's all I have." It flicked its tail and stared at her. A name was a thread. Threads led somewhere. Amaya knew where old names lived: the records office. She tucked the necklace under her dress, laced her brown sandals, and stepped out into the sun. The three gray municipal buildings rose around a shared courtyard. A sign reading City Hall faced the front. Rows of windows watched her climb the steps. Inside, a clerk pointed her toward a room of dusty ledgers. Amaya spent hours turning brittle pages, dragging her finger down columns of names. K. S. K. S. Her eyes burned. Then she found it. One line, water-stained but clear. A marriage record. "Kai" and "Serin." The same as her letters. Her heart slammed against the necklace hidden on her chest. She read further, hands shaking. Beside the names, a note in old ink listed a last address. The record named a small house at the edge of town. Then it named the owners' trade: they had kept the sea. They were sea-folk. Amaya's breath caught. Sea-folk. People like her. The gills, the webbed fingers, the strangeness she had carried alone all her life had a source, and it had names, and one of those names was Kai. She copied the address onto her palm before the clerk could see her cry. But the record held one more line, and it changed everything. Below the address, someone had stamped a single word in red: DECEASED. Both of them. Kai and Serin were gone. Amaya sat back. She had a name. She had a house. She no longer had parents to find waiting there. Whatever answers survived, they waited inside four walls she had never seen, kept by no one. She wiped her face, closed the ledger, and read the address on her palm again. The house at the edge of town. That was where the truth lived now. She stood and walked out into the courtyard, already deciding to go.

The address led Amaya to a house swallowed by weeds. Broken windows faced the lake behind it. She searched every room before the sun dropped. Empty cupboards. Rotting boards. A rusted stove. Her parents had left nothing she could hold. Her small brown companion squeezed through a cracked wall and chirped. Amaya followed it outside. Beyond the house, a narrow dock leaned over dark water. Her gills tightened at the lake’s sharp, cold smell. “Maybe you know,” she whispered to the water. She slipped off her sandals and stepped onto the dock. A plank split beneath her webbed foot. Amaya grabbed a post, but the wet wood tore free. She fell into the lake. Cold water closed over her head. For one frightened second, she kicked toward the surface. Then her gills opened. Water rushed through them, clean and easy. Amaya stopped fighting. Below the dock lay a line tied to an iron ring. At its end, a small metal box rested in the mud. She swam down, freed the knot with her webbed fingers, and carried the box up. Someone stood at the shore when she surfaced. A young man with dark hair watched her from the reeds. Gills marked his neck. He looked relieved enough to stumble. “Amaya,” he said. “Please do not dive beside a broken dock alone.” She held the box against her chest. “Who are you?” The man bowed his head. “Finn Tidecrest. Your cousin. My father was Kai’s brother.” Kai’s name struck harder than the cold lake. Amaya climbed onto the dock, dripping. “You knew my father?” “I knew of him,” Finn said. “My family searched for you after Kai and Serin died. We learned too late that they had lived here.” He pointed at the box. “That was their signal cache. They hid it underwater when they feared people would search the house.” Amaya forced the lid open. Inside lay a waterproof strip of cloth, marked with two names: Kai and Serin. Beneath them, one sentence remained clear. KEEP AMAYA AWAY FROM THE DEEP CHANNEL. The lake shifted beside the dock. A long current pulled leaves toward a darker stretch of water. Finn read the message over her shoulder. His face went still. “Then they knew the deep channel was dangerous.” Amaya folded the cloth and closed her fist around it. The house had given her no answers. The lake had given her a warning, and a path she now had to follow.

Amaya held the cloth strip until her knuckles paled. The warning told her where the danger was. It did not tell her what waited in the deep channel. She looked at Finn. He knew this lake. He had lived in and around it his whole life. If anyone could explain the danger, it was her cousin. "You have to tell me what's down there," she said. Finn stepped back. His webbed feet pressed into the mud. "You should leave the lake alone." "I can't." Amaya raised the cloth. "They wrote my name. They warned me for a reason. I want that reason." He crouched at the water's edge and dragged one hand through it. The current still tugged leaves toward the dark stretch. A small brown creature crept out of the reeds, twitching its round ears, its green tail curling. It sniffed Finn's ankle. He did not look at it. "Your parents died in the deep channel," Finn said. His voice dropped. "Poison seeps up from the bottom there. It kills the water and everything in it. Kai and Serin tried to seal the source. They didn't come back." Amaya sat down hard on the broken dock. A plank groaned under her. She had wanted a father to find. Instead she had a grave. "That's why my family searched for you," Finn went on. "We knew you carried their blood. We knew you'd come here one day. I hoped I'd reach you first." "Reach me before what?" "Before you swam into it." Amaya looked at the water. Her gills opened and closed at the cold, sharp smell she now understood. The poison. Her parents had breathed it trying to stop it. "Then help me finish it," she said. "Show me the channel. Not to swim in. To see it." Finn was quiet for a long time. The creature climbed into his lap and settled there. He rested a hand on its fur. "You look like Serin," he said. "She never listened either." He stood. "I'll take you to the edge. Not past it. If you go past it, I pull you back. Promise me." "I promise." He waded in to his waist and turned. "There's more than the message in that box. My father kept records of what Kai found. Charts of the channel. The source. I have them at my place along the shore." Amaya's chest tightened. Not a grave, then. A trail. "You never said that," she said. "You never asked the right question." Finn almost smiled. "You asked what's down there. You should have asked what they left behind." He swam toward the far bend. Amaya tucked the cloth into her dress, slipped off the dock, and followed. The water took her without fear this time. Her cousin had opened a door. Somewhere along this shore, her parents' work still waited, and now she had someone to read it with.